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posted by on Tuesday January 03 2017, @06:14PM   Printer-friendly
from the actual-statesmen dept.

An Anonymous Coward writes:

Found this interesting bit of history at the NY Times

George H. W. Bush: Hello, Mikhail.

Mikhail S. Gorbachev: George, my dear friend. It is good to hear your voice.

G.B.: I greet you on this momentous day, this historic day. I appreciate your calling me.

M.G.: Let me begin by saying something pleasant to you: Merry Christmas to you, Barbara and your family. I had been thinking about when to make my statement, Tuesday or today. I finally decided to do it today, at the end of the day. So let me say first Merry Christmas and very best wishes.

Well, let me say that in about two hours I will speak on Moscow TV and will make a short statement about my decision. I have sent a letter to you, George. I hope you will receive it shortly. I said in the letter a most important thing. And I would like to reaffirm to you that I greatly value what we did working together with you, first as vice president and then as president of the United States. I hope that all leaders of the commonwealth and, above all, Russia understand what kind of assets we have accrued between the leaders of our two countries. I hope they understand their responsibility to preserve and expand this important source of capital.

Gorbachev goes on to say that he is handing off control of the USSR's nukes to Russia in an organized fashion. Bush thanks him for that and then recalls the fun they had tossing horseshoes at Camp David.

With all the talk of Trump and Putin being business buddies, it looks like there is at least some precedent of the two cold war country leaders carrying on a civil conversation.


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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 04 2017, @12:16AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 04 2017, @12:16AM (#449154)

    > If he does start to show weakness, he will be crushed.

    Hmmm, who does Russia get for a leader if Putin goes down? Anyone? A figurehead put there by Russian oil money?

    I'm asking because Trump may just be clever enough to get Putin to show some weakness. Not saying this would be a good thing for Trump to do, because Trump probably hasn't done any thinking about what comes next--just that Trump focuses in on the win/kill.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 04 2017, @02:25AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 04 2017, @02:25AM (#449194)

    > Trump may just be clever enough to get Putin to show some weakness.

    Fat chance.
    If Putin does something stupid as a result of Trump its going to be nothing more than supremely bad luck on Putin's part.
    Trump is not a 4D-chess grandmaster. He's just the "right man" for the times. Without twitter and 20 years of conservative media yammering on about the lugenpresse he'd be just another billionaire born with a silver spoon up his ass.